Wednesday, March 01, 2006

GAME PLAN: SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, THIS TIME FOR KEEPS

Duplicate of post originally published on http://vichydems.blogspot.com; please visit there for more background, status reports, comments, and discussion.

The Roots Project is an effort by a loose group of bloggers, including VichyDems, Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, John Amato of Crooks & Liars, and Digby of Hullabaloo, to work with local bloggers in each state to mobilize local grassroots/netroots/”netboots” efforts.

Today we’re rolling out an ambitious plan: to turn out both national and in-state activists, for two states (Nebraska and Maine), on two fronts (calls to senators and letters to editors). Here’s the skinny:

The Issue: Warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens. More specifically, calling for the Senate Judiciary Committee -- which punted the ball last time (more here, here, and especially here) -- to commit to holding hearings into the NSA’s wiretap program.

The Timeline: The Senate Intelligence Committee meets next on March 7. We’re hammering them between now and then, including at night and over the weekend.

The Senators: The two key senators here are Olympia Snowe in Maine and Chuck Hagel in Nebraska. Both are moderate Republicans who have expressed unease with the NSA program. Both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee (whose chair, Pat Roberts, we targeted in our Kansas effort last week). While we’re at it, we’ll also tell those states’ other two senators, Ben Nelson (D-NB) and Susan Collins (R-ME), that we want Congressional oversight into the NSA issue. They don’t sit on the key Intelligence Committee, but still have important voices in the overall discussion.

The Media: Contact information for the key newspapers in both states is included in today’s Game Plan. We want them flooded with enough Letters to the Editor that at least a few get through, hopefully stimulating more public debate and possibly influencing the policymakers’ decisions. At the very least, we won’t allow the issue to be ignored, the way the White House wants.

The Goal: Congressional hearings into the NSA issue -- and ones that are as broad as possible, NOT merely to amend the law to retroactively make illegal activity legal.

A little detail: the White House wants to either ignore the whole mess or, if they can’t, to get the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) amended to, as Glenn Greenwald put it, “simply exempt the whole warrantless NSA program from the requirements of FISA.” White House lackey Mike DeWine (R-OH) is pushing for the “make Bush King” approach. We have to make clear that we reject the DeWine approach: WE WANT REAL HEARINGS INTO THE NSA PROGRAM, AND REAL OVERSIGHT BY CONGRESS TO PROTECT OUR RIGHTS.

Get more background info on the NSA fiasco on Wikipedia, then read Jane and Glenn and John for talking points and more detailed analysis of the issues.

Who Can Participate? What’s the Game Plan?EVERYONE can participate in this one, NOT JUST MAINE AND NEBRASKA RESIDENTS. This is a national issue, so this is a national Game Plan. But we’re breaking you into teams:

Residents of Maine or Nebraska, or who have roots there: Politicians pay a lot more attention to in-state feedback, since what they really care about is votes. So residents of those states get to do the whole shebang. We want you writing letters to the editor using your local addresses; those are much more likely to get published. We also want you emailing, webmailing, faxing, and telephoning your senators, at BOTH their DC AND DISTRICT (in-state) offices. Be sure to tell the staffers what your connection to the state is.

Everyone else: Feel free to write letters to the editor if you have some reason to believe they might get published, and to call the key senators during business hours if that’s more convenient for you. But if the phones are very busy during the daytime, that might mean that in-state callers aren’t able to get through. In that case, please consider making your calls at night and over the weekend, and leaving voicemails. Why? (1) Local callers will have an easier time getting through during business hours, when they can engage with staffers on a personal level, and (2) There’s no one there on the weekends to ask where you live, so you don’t have to tell them in your message. But don’t overstress on “who calls when.” The important thing is to make the calls.

That’s it! All the contact info you’ll ever need is below; and to make it even easier, I’m proving internal links to help you jump to the right spot:

Ben Nelson (D-NB) (Not on any relevant committees at this time; simply register your gneral desire to see hearings and oversight of the NSA program. FWIW, Sen. Nelson is a conservative Democrat who voted with the Republicans last year than he did with the Democrats, and who voted not only for cloture, but for Samuel Alito's nomination itself. "Party loyalty" approaches won't work with him. Appeals to the principle of checks and balances and to the dangers of a completely unsupervised Executive, however, might.)Senator Nelson webmail

Lewiston Sun JournalLetters to the Editor,Sun Journal,P.O. Box 4400,Lewiston, ME04243-4400Guidelines : Max 250 words. Name and telephone number required; I suggest including address as well, to establish local connection.How to Submit : Snail mail to the above address, orFax to 207-777-3436, orLetters webform, orEmail to letters@sunjournal.com

York County Journal TribuneGuidelines: None given; I recommend including name, address and telephone to establish local connection.How to Submit :Fax to 207-282-3138, orEmail City Editor Nick Cowenhoven at ncowenhoven@journaltribune.com

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Portland Press HeraldP.O. Box 1460Portland, ME 04104-5009Guidelines : Max 250 words. Name, address and home and work phone numbers. Readers will be contacted before their letters are published.How to submit : Snail mail to address above, orFax to (207) 828-8154, orEmail to letterstotheeditor@pressherald.com

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The Republican Journal (no, I’m not kidding! Give it a shot!)Guidelines: None given; I recommend including name, address and telephone to establish local connection.How to submit :Email Editor Daniel Dunkle at trjmail@courierpub.com

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The Times RecordBox 10Brunswick, ME 04011Guidelines : 350 words max. I recommend including name, address and telephone to establish local connection.How to Submit : Snail mail to the above address, orFax to (207) 721-3151, orletters@timesrecord.com